


On Happiness

by stephanericher



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: Sometimes it's right there in the dark.





	

There’s a few new marks on Bodhi’s hand, a cut slicing across the back of his hand, half-healed, and a shallow burn mark on the edge of his thumb, still smooth to the touch. It bothers Galen that he hadn’t noticed earlier, but now each inch of injured flesh has his attention. Bodhi’s taken care of it (he’s a pilot; he knows the drill) but it’s still distressing to see. He can’t (and doesn’t actually want to) shut Bodhi away from harm, lock him in some sort of gilded prison that’s a twisted mirror of the one he’s in himself. Bodhi, too, is looking at their joined hands, lying on the dull grey bedspread.

“You’ve got scars,” Bodhi points out (though this is doubtless not the first time he’s noticed).

He does; they’re old. The last time he’d gotten one, or even been in position to, had been quite a long time ago, when he’d lead a very different life than one of calculations on datapads and miniscule tweaks on computer-aided drawings.

“I used to be a farmer.”

Saying it doesn’t hurt the way he’s expecting. Bodhi blinks, then adjusts his gaze as if he’s trying to reconcile the burnished (but squashed into the imperial box nonetheless) hands-off engineer in front of him with the man Galen once had been. Bodhi knows some things about Galen’s life before, but not this until now. Perhaps he’d assumed Galen had been some sort of independent engineer (as if there was such a thing) or a mathematician. Had that been the case, maybe it would have been easier. Maybe he could have hidden in plain sight; maybe he wouldn’t be thinking, right now, of Jyn’s heartbeat hammering through her clothes as she’d clung to him, of Lyra’s body going cold in his arms as the wet ground soaked his legs through.

“Were you happy? Doing that?”

He forces those memories back down the way he always does. Maybe Bodhi can see the pain in his eyes; either way he seems about to deflect and say he hadn’t meant to probe, but this is something that, now it’s been touched, Galen needs to say. He opens his mouth as the denial dies on his tongue, suddenly uncertain of how to even answer the question, but it’s enough to stop Bodhi from protesting before he begins.

Had he been happy? At the time he hadn’t thought of happiness. It had all been about safety, protecting Jyn, keeping all of them away from the Empire, and it had only worked for so long. The fear, justified, of the past coming back to claim them, had cut through, especially in retrospect (how soon could they have known? Could they all have gotten out? Where were the warning signs?) and yet. And yet. There are so many memories, stacked up in disorganized piles, of warm caf on cold mornings and watching holodramas while knitting socks and getting distracted by the cheap tragedy enough to drop stitches, of the days out in the fields with the droids, maintaining a pace of tending to the crops, sweating under the sun, of Lyra and Jyn and the love sustained around him that had made all of it worthwhile.

“Yes. I was. I would have stayed.”

(Were things different. But that goes unsaid; that part Bodhi knows enough of.) Bodhi’s fingers reach up to touch his face, trace down the side, brush his ears. The touch says everything, that he wishes Galen might have, that happiness like that is worth more than utilizing so-called natural gifts.

“What of you, Darling?”

“Farm?” Bodhi laughs, quick and quiet. “That would be tough on Jedha.”

“No. Were you happy before all this?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked it. Asking these sorts of things always gets him in trouble, and he’s fairly certain Bodhi doesn’t have it in him to lie about this, to Galen or to himself. But the moment hangs, and Bodhi’s eyes don’t cloud over in anger or sadness or irritation. He’s considering the question, as if he never really had before, as if he hadn’t even had a ready answer, a preconceived notion the way Galen had.

“I’m sorry,” Galen says, finally.

“No, please don’t be,” says Bodhi, half-smile not quite reaching the corners of his mouth. “I suppose I was as much as I could be. It’s just…it wasn’t a priority.”

And it’s not now, for either of them; their own priorities have been diverted into the stream of The Good Of The Empire as much as possible, and whatever remains is for survival and the future. It’s not a sweet, beautiful truth (whoever conflated truth with beauty must have been delusional in the worst way) but regardless, Galen wants to wipe that look from Bodhi’s face. Lives are so often wasted, slivers of happiness so few and far between.

Bodhi sees something in Galen’s face; his expression breaks like a shallow wave, a genuine smile easing its way onto his lips. His fingers curl around the edge of Galen’s jaw, and the edge of the burn mark on his thumb slips beneath Galen’s chin.

“I’m happy when I’m with you,” Bodhi says.

And warmth begins to unfold from within the pit of his stomach. Of course, even with having to worry about all the deception, even with the secret grievances they air between each other alone, even with how little time they have, Galen’s happy here with Bodhi, too. It’s not a farm; the quiet calm here is always artificial and sterile, and he’s not happy with the situation at large (would that they could have met in a free galaxy, bound by no obligations, survival never an issue, but then, had they even been born into those circumstances would they meet at all?) but when they’re together it’s unmistakable when he’s looking for it, the humming undercurrent that fills up the silence and puts him at ease. But it’s easy to forget in the darkness, the quasi-despair that never quite takes hold, when Galen’s so used to happiness slipping away like an illusion, a dream he can’t quite remember when the sleep leaves his eyes.

Bodhi’s nose brushes against his; Bodhi’s lips press to his. The warmth inside him spreads outwards, meeting the spark of Bodhi’s tongue on his teeth.

Bodhi’s eyes are still full of something like wonder, something made of happiness, and Galen smiles.

“Sleep?”

“Yes,” Bodhi whispers.

He turns around, tucking himself into the crook of Galen’s shoulder easily, and for a brief second Galen imagines that they’re on a farm, that the rain outside is saturating the soil where the crops grow, that in the morning they’ll wake early to feed the livestock. But he’s never had much of an imagination for that, even drawing from his memories, and there’s no use in imagining when it will only let this moment of tangible happiness, as it is, slip away.

**Author's Note:**

> i keep trying to write them something nice but this isn't really that lmao. one day, maybe.
> 
> your feedback is always appreciated!


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